Overheard at the summit

4 August 2015

#2015APCS featured some fantastic speakers and unique personalities. If you didn’t get the chance to attend Asia Pacific Cities Summit sessions at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre between 5 and 8 July, here’s your chance to catch up on some of the more interesting statements made during the four-day event.

I would always encourage a city to stage a major event because done properly the impacts are profound.

The impact goes way beyond simply the economic stats.

The biggest challenge every city now has when staging a Games … the most demanding stakeholder to satisfy … are the people that live in the city. And they are profoundly more demanding and sophisticated than ever before.

Councillor Adrian Shrinner – Deputy Mayor, City of Brisbane

The future for Brisbane is the Asia Pacific region. We are not Melbourne or Sydney and we don’t want to compete with them either.

A smart city is much bigger than the residents that live and work in it.

David Finn – Managing Director, Tritium, Brisbane

I am passionate about what electric vehicles can do for cities.

Neil Glentworth – Managing Director, Glentworth Consulting Pty Ltd

Privacy is mine to give, not for others to take.

Asaf Zamir – Deputy Mayor, Tel Aviv Yafo

We have no natural resources but 1758 bars, clubs and discotheques.

It is trendy to now live in cities, but they still demand the quality of life living in suburbs offers.

You pay your city bills through your phone. You can send your kids to kindergarten through your phone. You can fix a pothole through your phone. It is an era in which the public demand to take part in decisions. Use mobile technology to have residents take part in the decision-making.

Tyler Brule – Editor-in-Chief, Monocle & Chairman, Winkreative

If you’re going to get shot, it’s probably going to ruin your day. London does not make the (quality of life) ranking because of the sheer number of break-ins and the doors are made of toilet paper.

We need icons to inspire great cities.

Kinky laneways create intrigue. Add a curve here and there. We like the serendipity. We like that sense of discovery.

I think there is just too much technology.

Kaoru Kobayashi - Mayor, Fukushima City Office

We will revive Fukushima.

Decontamination work will be completed this year.

Todd – Youngcare client

The biggest pain of disability is the loss of choice.

Randi Zuckerberg – Founder and CEO, Zuckerberg Media, San Francisco

Our society really needs a digital detox when people think their family members live inside the computer!

Give kids some tech but don’t go too wild. Still make sure they go outside – I heard the graphics rock out there!

Think of yourselves as a media company.

I call this the age of the entre-ployee.

(Facebook) was maybe the least glamorous place I had ever seen but I did see this incredible passion.

The Asia Pacific Cities Summit is the region’s largest gathering of city leaders.

Delegates from more than 100 cities from across the world attended the July 2015 summit, including leaders of government and business from across The Americas, Australasia, East Asia, Middle East, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia.

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Brisbane, Australia, is a thriving multicultural city and successful host of the 2014 G20 Leaders Summit. A global hub in scientific innovation, mining and resources, technology, education, meetings and incentives and cultural attractions, Brisbane is committed to strengthening international trade and commerce.